The present invention is directed to a machine including a filling valve for filling a liquid into containers such as bottles or the like with the filling valve including a support body with at least a return gas tube located in the support bottle, and means for moving the filling valve and a centering tube in the vertical direction between a lower position holding a bottle to be filled and an upper position spaced upwardly from the bottle.
In such filling valves including a gas return tube, the filling height in the container, for instance a reusable bottle, is determined by the location of the lower end of the return gas tube. Accordingly, the liquid introduced into the container does not rise above the lower end of the return gas tube and gas exchange cannot take place once the liquid reaches the lower end of the tube. As a result, the filling height in the container is basically dependent on the location of the lower end of the return gas tube. If containers of different sizes and different mouth contours are processed, it is necessary to replace such a return gas tube to obtain the appropriate adjustment of the filling height for a different type of bottle. Such replacement is time-consuming, particularly in the case of filling machines designed as rotary filling machines with a multitude of filling locations around the circumference of the machine.